During the six years I spent writing my novel 'The Incarnations,' I lived in seven cities in four countries. I moved in and out of 17 different houses and flats in Beijing, Seoul, Colorado, Boston, Leeds, Washington D.C., London and Shenzhen.

I wrote in coffee shops in Japan when I was 22, 23, before I had the stamina to sit down and write. I liked the buzzy environment; I couldn't speak Japanese when I arrived, so it was kind of a white noise. It felt more sociable than being alone, but now, as I've developed a writing practice, I couldn't do it.

Truth is often a multiplicity of perspectives, and sometimes the more viewpoints and versions of events there are, the closer the reader gets to an overarching truth.

Most of 'Let the Great World Spin' is centered on the day in 1974 when Philippe Petit walked on a tightrope between the two towers of the World Trade Center, creating an astonishing spectacle that intersects with the lives of many of the novel's multiple protagonists.